Re: [tied] PIE dorsals

----- Original Message -----
From: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
To: cybalist@egroups.com
Sent: Saturday, December 09, 2000 12:48 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] PIE dorsals


>It's my understanding that a variant form <Mane-zordum> (besides
<Mane-gordum>, <Gordium>) is known in Phrygian.

>And yet there remains an irreducible number of solid etymologies, which are
not fringe words, are not explainable by phonetic environment, and that
contain *K. We can argue about which ones they are precisely, or if their
number is comparable to or lower than that
of words with *Kw. I too used to believe there were only two dorsal series,
but in the end I just gave up making excuses.

>>Why not *kw- : *kWw- (reduced *kWeu-) > *k^w- : *kw-?

>(I'll use your transcription here on) Because where we find ablaut
variations, the words with *kw alternate with *keu, while *k^w alternates
with *k^eu. I'm not aware of a single example of ablaut alternation *kw ~
*kWeu-.

>In Greek, *k^w > pp/tt, *kw > k ...

>In Latin *kw sometimes becomes w (vapor), while *kW, *k^w > qu.

The existence of separate reflexes of *kw vs. *k^w, both in satem and centun
langugaes, seems to me to be undeniable evidence that explaining *k ~ *k^
away as positional variants simply doesn't work. The environment is special
(and rare), but it was identical for both
*k and *k^.